Archive 2654

Part II: Israel was Atlantis Plato’s geographical errors

Written by: Jaime Manuschevich Read 46,264 times.

The geographical errors Plato

Why should we look elsewhere Atlantis

At present there are two compelling reasons, closely related to redefine the position of the legendary territory, if we accept its existence as a reality. The first and most compelling reason is that it is not where it was supposed submerged: the Atlantic Ocean. For two millennia and means, the place where he had been the mythical island was not questioned on the basis that a highly respected source -Platón- defined who was there. However, this question was clearly widespread acceptance due to the exploration of the ocean bottom was showing there was no geological or archaeological evidence that there was a sunken island in the times of the Greek philosopher. The renowned underwater explorer Robert Ballard, who participated and led several expeditions to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, was clear in its conclusions: “If Atlantis was somewhere west of Gibraltar, over 20 years of exploration of the deep sea would revealed any indication of his sudden end … Atlantis, if it existed, it was elsewhere “(J Manuschevich, page 46;. C. Pellegrino, pages 34-35). The second big reason comes from Plato himself. The expressly he stated that Solon changed all the names that originally gave the Egyptians: “But before going further with the story, I must warn you, that you should not be surprised if perhaps hear Hellenic names given to foreigners. I’ll tell you the reason of this: Solon, who intended to use the tale for his poem, investigated in the meaning of names, and found that the early Egyptians, to write, they had translated into their own language, and he regained meaning of several names, and re-copied, translated them into our language. “(Critias, 113) This sentence shows us very clearly that none of the names used by the Greeks are the originals, which were modified in a Semitic language or Afro-Asiatic, Egyptian, an Indo-European language, Greek, with all the difficulties that can carry a translation of this size, obstacle becomes more complex because they know the levels of knowledge of Egyptian and Solon who had made ??such translations. Therefore, strictly speaking, it is possible that all or many of the names used in the myth may be wrong and, like it or not, worthless to identify any specific place or territory. To be rigorous, we must return to reinterpret, from the levels of knowledge of the history we have today. These two solid reasons compel us to take a completely different course to research, to investigate why we have been all this time and disoriented truths which may be the places referred to by the Egyptians.

Compared ancient geographical knowledge

Perhaps the biggest mistake of all those professional researchers and enthusiasts who have dedicated themselves to locate this lost island over thousands of years has been considering this myth as a Greek legend, without admitting it has its origin and its roots in ancient Egypt . The Greeks took the Nile, as noted by the caption: “if Solon (…) had finished the story he brought with him from Egypt (…) would have been as famous as Homer or Hesiod, or any poet” ( Timaeus, 21). The aim of the compiler, Solon, as we saw earlier, was adapt and modify it to be understood and accepted by the Hellenic civilization, cultural space where they intended to transform it into an epic the Homeric style. And here the Greek legislature fully achieved its goal . In fact, we have almost forgotten the origin of the myth and practice do not know how is part of the Egyptian legend and how much is added to the Greek adaptation by their reformulators. What we do know is that there are significant differences between a company and other and in particular on maritime knowledge, allowing us in this way to separate one component from another. From this point of view, the Greeks were seasoned sailors in the Mediterranean Sea. On the contrary, the Egyptians never set out to sea sailing, an activity that would have allowed them to effectively collect more information geographical sea. In fact, all known in the trade depended on the open sea Minoan at the beginning, after the Phoenicians and later the Greeks and Romans. In ancient times, the Egyptians only sailed the Nile and the Red Sea, as They show us their own historical record. Therefore, they had a level of information much more precarious than the range of knowledge available to the Greek Mediterranean geography, since they had never ventured directly into the sea. From this difference in levels of geographical knowledge between the two cultures it is easy to discern that the Egyptians gave different names to Solon, with a physical or topographical descriptions of places, and that this, in its intention to make it comprehensible to the Greeks, assigned, or they translated them according to their own definition-the names to the places of the myth we know today. This modification of the name given by the Egyptians is expressly stated in the myth, as we saw. (Critias, 113) And certainly remain faithful to the story, the names assigned by comparing the physical descriptions of the sites provided by the Egyptians and topographic knowledge himself available. But there must have been a philosopher and not Solon, who established that this continent or island was lost in the Atlantic Ocean then unknown, beyond a narrow, which the Gibraltar classified as current or former Columns of Hercules, and the legislature he lived before that name was established. Therefore, to replace the original vision of Egypt and establish the correct position of the island, we must analyze the geographical knowledge of the Greeks, compared to what they knew the Egyptians and conclude whether we are talking about the same geography.

The Atlantic Ocean and the Pillars of Hercules

The name of the Atlantic Ocean to identify the sea that lay beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and hypothetical location of the island, just is first used by Herodotus, a generation before Plato, and therefore the This designation is after the same patronymic Solon: “The name Sea of Atlantis, at least for part of what is called the North Atlantic was born a generation before Plato was used. First it appears in the form of Herodotus ‘called sea of Atlantis’ and the name seems to have developed without reference to the legend of Atlantis. Herodotus (…) knew a tribe called the Atlanteans living in an oasis in the desert [Moroccan] a great distance to the west of Egypt. They derived their name from a mountain called Atlas “. (Pellegrino, C. 1997) also indicate the mere fact that the sea was beyond the Pillars of Hercules calls, also has another serious problem in relation to geographical knowledge of the Egyptians on this area, because this narrow no It was seen as a topographical unit that could be used as a reference well into the story. “The Pillars of Hercules were the Rock of Gibraltar (which in antiquity or Alybe Calpe is called) and Mount Abyla in Africa across the Strait of Gibraltar, near Ceuta. These two landmarks dominate the passage between the known world, the Mediterranean, and the unknown world of the Atlantic Ocean. ” (Evans, E., Cayse, G .; Richards, D., 1993) Therefore, the claim that Atlantis was beyond the Pillars of Hercules recently is valid only from the expansion of the Greeks and later cultures . But it was not for the Egyptians, since such a narrow, knowing they would see it as two separate geographical elements. Alybe and Abyla not as close, as it saw it all other ancient civilizations This first comparison shows us that is impossible that the Egyptians had indicated to Solon that the position of this island or continent was in the Atlantic Ocean, an ocean that was completely unknown to the Egyptians. In fact, the island of Crete, located only 450 kilometers from the Nile Delta was a very distant reality for them as the “papyrus Ipuwer uses the phrase ‘as far as Keftiu [Crete].'” (Pellegrino, C. 1997)

The Greeks were unaware of the existence of the Red Sea

The following vacuum of classical analysis, is not to assume that the Greeks, to make the study of geography to locate the continent, did not consider the Red Sea, thus completely unaware of its existence, as can be seen in the map of the world made ??by Anaximander Miletus was an important Greek philosopher of the sixth century. This thinker, who would have been born around the year 610/609 and 545 died before the common era, is credited with authoring four books-apart nature circumference of the earth, On the fixed stars and Celeste area of a map-mundi. Diogenes Laertius (II, 2) says that Anaximander was the first to trace the perimeter of the land and sea and also built a celestial sphere, that is a chart of the heavens. Agathemerus (I, 1) and Strabo (I, 7) also report that Anaximander drew a map of the inhabited earth, which was later perfected by Hecataeus of Miletus. Your map-mundi is a circular design, in which the known regions (Asia and Europe) were approximately equal segments and all surrounded by the sea Okéano, including what we call today the Atlantic Ocean. There was no existence consigned the Red Sea, between Arabia and Egypt. (Herodotus, IV, 36). These geographical knowledge of Anaximandro were based on news sailors were plentiful and varied in Miletus, trade and colonization center. Solon, who was born in 639 BC and died in 560 BCE, very close to Anáximadro period, could only have the available information at the time. This led him to place the island at a place west of the Mediterranean, since the land was “beyond the narrow” and to himself were the straits of Messina (Sicily) and Heracles (now Gibraltar). Not knowing the Red Sea, he did not know of the existence of the straits of Bab el-Mandeb, Eilat or Tiran and Suez, as can be seen in a real map of the region. This led to another key mistake.

Map upside down or wrong seas

Plato, only connoisseur of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic, to make changes of names already mentioned, assumed that the Red Sea is the Mediterranean, without considering that this sea was completely unknown to the Egyptians. The sea known to them It was the Red Sea, which in turn was unknown to the Greeks. For the ancient Egyptians the latter sea was the family, who knew from beginning to end; it was the sea that were headed across the Nile, which was its main shipping route. If the shape evolution of Egyptian culture is observed in the Nile valley, you will see that most modern settlements are increasingly near the Mediterranean. In fact, Avaris, home of the Hyksos pharaohs Dynasties XV and XVI, is no more than 20 kilometers from the Mediterranean. From Memphis, the political center of the dynasties VI to VIII, there are 200 kilometers of the Mediterranean coast and 150 kilometers to the coast of the Suez Canal, establishing an equidistance from both seas; Tinis, center pretinita period and the first three dynasties of Egyptian civilization recognized by historians, is 300 kilometers from the Red Sea, while it is more than 500 kilometers of Giza and 700 kilometers from the Mediterranean. Ombo, important predynastic, period prior to pretinita center, is 300 kilometers from the Red Sea and 1,100 kilometers from the Mediterranean. It is obvious that in Egyptian culture a gradual displacement of the importance of the Red Sea for the benefit of the Mediterranean, to the extent that in this sea are generated new commercial spotlights, the delta is colonized and political power shifts to emerging happens the north. A test of the level of knowledge that had the Egyptian Red Sea is an expedition to Punt, in today’s Somalia, in the Horn of Africa, held under Pharaoh Pepi II of the Sixth Dynasty, to the 2300 ACS, which according to some historians became ground, while others claim to be made ??by sea, as stated by the Egyptians themselves. “Pepi II decided to send a boat to the land of Punt, that is, to a place on the coast of Somalia. The shipping point must be on the Asian shore of the Red Sea. ” (Drioton, E., Vandier, J., 1964) From these facts there is the story of a dwarf famous expedition that brought him to Pharaoh, and he asked the head of the expedition that extreme care is: “When you board you choose two henchman to constantly be at his side and not let him fall into the water “(Grinberg, C., 1985) request to ratify the character of maritime expedition, impossible to carry on the Nile.

The Punt, a key name

This African country is directly connected with the Phoenicians, as they were also called punitas or tirrenios, taking its original name the southern end of the Red Sea, Somalia. According to historical tradition, to the 3500 ACS, the area of Phoenicia “was invaded by a people of Semitic origin from Punait (now Somalia, in the southern part of the Red Sea), which is why the Phoenicians were also met with poeni name or Puni “. (Podesta, LA, 1946) This fact, unknown to Solon, probably led him to write this confusing phrase “men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Hercules to Egypt and Europe to Tirrenia” ( Timaeus, 25). This wording is obvious that there is a gap between one territory and another, one inside and one outside, reflecting a certain geographical confusion as all real territories indicated herein are “inside” the Pillars of Hercules, that is, within the Mediterranean basin. It is likely that when the Egyptians transmitted the information to Solon, he noted that Egypt and Libya were within or narrow, which can be either the current Suez Canal or the Straits of Tiran, or even the Bab el Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Arabian Sea, narrow unknown to the Greeks, that is assumed by Solon as the Pillars of Hercules; Meanwhile, the mysterious Tirrenia, was not. Today we know with certainty that area considered the ancient Egyptians as the “coastal facade” of his country, which could be either the current Mediterranean coast, the delta, or the coasts of Red Sea, the sea known. But most likely, by the process of cultural expansion noted above, it is that the ancient Egyptians considered the Red Sea coast its coastal facade, but when transmitting the myth either the Mediterranean, which is expressed in this strange writing. Therefore, as to this mysterious second territory, it is likely that Egyptians have referred to Punt, which is effectively out of any narrow, leading to Solon as a separate paragraph, because it does not match their geographical knowledge, but expressly omitted this exclusion.

¿Punitas the tirrenios?

This confusion leads to Solon or Plato to rename Punt by Tirrenia, the Greek name given to the region that is now part of southern Italy, Sicily and part of North Africa that is in front, where he was Kart- Haddatch, or Carthage, these being important areas regions colonized by the Punic and Phoenician, calling themselves Canaanites. He must consider, with full legitimacy, that the Egyptians were give the name of Punt to the area, associated with them Phoenicians or Punic, also known as “tirrios” by the Greeks, because they come from Tyre, Phoenician city on the coast of Canaan . All this translation would be, according to Solon, a correct interpretation according to geographical backgrounds available by the Greeks at that time. In fact, the sea between Sicily and Africa is still called the Tyrrhenian Sea. This great movement of the Canaanites, Phoenicians, Carthaginians or tirrios undoubtedly led to another confusion to the Greeks.

¿Arabia o Europa?

The text points out that “in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire that ruled the whole island and several others, and ruled parts of the continent, and extending his rule, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Hercules to Egypt and Europe to Tirrenia “(Timaeus, 25). But certainly to be established that the Tirrenia Plato is really the Punt, it is clear that the other territory specified is not Europe, but the region which is right opposite current Somalia. the Arabian Peninsula Assuming Canaan, today Israel, was the mythical island (Manuschevich, J., 2002), and the coordinates and places to point out in my book are correct, the myth of Atlantis is very clear respect to this relationship with the territory that today constitutes the Arabian peninsula, “the island [K’naan] was bigger than [the islands] Libya [high area around Benghazi] and Asia [ancient Egyptian name for the island of Cyprus] together and were the way to other islands, and from these you could spend an entire continent Front surrounding an ocean; this sea [current Dead Sea] was inside the Straits of Hercules [Eilat-Tiran] had only one port, [Jericho] past a narrow entrance [Bab el Mandeb], but that another was an ocean, [Arabian Sea] and the surrounding region [Saudi] can be truly called a boundless continent “(Timaeus, 24-25). Only this view of the situation is possible to understand this complex paragraph that has led many to assume that the island itself was a continent or an island continent, but the author is clearly talking about a sea and an ocean and two territories is referring to an island – “in the Straits of Hercules” – and an unlimited frontero continent that was surrounded by an ocean , as it is the situation of the Arabian Peninsula, which is surrounded in part by the Red Sea, then in the Arabian Sea and finally the Persian Gulf.

The expansion of natufitas

Analyzing this territory, calls attention to the city of Mecca is seated at a point equidistant from the two ends of the Red Sea. It is also very near the coast, a few kilometers from the modern port of Jidaa and interestingly almost in front of Port Sudan, on the west coast of the Red Sea. These characteristics of the settlement suggests that it was consciously founded as an intermediate point of the maritime route taken by ancient Atlantean in its expansion through the Red Sea, thousands of years before the Common Era, in full prehistory, playing a key role on the trade routes between the Isle of K’naan, Kush (Upper Egypt), Mineo-Saba (Saudi-Yemen today), and perhaps the emerging Indo Dravidian culture in Puntjab, helping to close a trade circle Neolithic extending in the north across the northern part of Mesopotamia, Palestine, Anatolia and Crete. Also, a further test of the big early influence of the Atlantean in the area is more south, in the present Yemen, which existed in a remote era, between 2500 BCE to 700 BCE, the ancient kingdom Mineo that “was famous not only for its wealth derived from the export of local flavors and the trafficking of precious materials with India and Africa-what which he led the Greeks to qualify the area as the ‘Arabia Felix’, for its fabulous riches-but also by the dam that one of their rulers had built in Ma’rib “. (Grinberg, C., 1985). This kingdom was located in the northern part of present-day Yemen and is mentioned in ancient writings “until the twelfth century BC On its southern neighbor, the state of the Sabians, realize briefs IX century BC. ” (Grinberg, C., 1985) Alongside this kingdom existed mythical kingdom of Sheba kingdom that has strong and ancient cultural ties with Ethiopia in Africa, precisely the Punt. “Recent archaeological discoveries have revealed the remains of monumental palaces, statues and epigraphic texts that we realize the greatness achieved by these kingdoms”. (Grinberg, C., 1985), however, which started its archaeological excavations only for a very brief period in 1928 failed to thoroughly study such places political difficulties of various kinds, as researchers have fled on several occasions being the imminent risk of their lives. Only recently (two years ago) has been very start the search, discovering “the Temple of the Queen of Sheba,” which had at its center a bull. So far neither history nor archeology have completed the origin of these contemporary kingdoms Sumer and Egypt were competing in splendor in the remote past response.

Conclusions

The first clear conclusion of this comparative analysis of the geographical knowledge between Greeks and Egyptians, is that the location of the mythical island in the Atlantic Ocean was not raised by the Egyptians, it was a conclusion reached by Plato to analyze the story Solon. The second conclusion is that the Greeks turned the seas, confusing the Red and Mediterranean seas, on the one hand, and the latter with the Atlantic Ocean. The third conclusion is that the cardinal reorientation of these deductions lead inevitably to place the Atlantis in the Eastern Mediterranean. The fourth conclusion is that the limitations of the knowledge that the Greeks had on the Middle East, have contributed to confusion over the location of the mythical island.

References

Pellegrino, C. (1997) The Mystery of Atlantis. Buenos Aires. Javier Vergara Editor SA (pp. 64) Evans, E., Cayse, G .; Richards, D. (1993), Mysteries of Atlantis. Madrid. Editorial FASD SA (pp. 28) Drioton, E., Vandier, J., (1964), History of Egypt, Buenos Aires, Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires (pp. 178). Grinberg, C., (1985). World History, Volume II, Santiago de Chile, Editorial Ercilla SA (pp. 152) Podesta, LA (1946). The Ancient East. Buenos Aires. Editorial Guillermo Kraft. (146 pp.) Manuschevich, J. (2002) Atlantis: the myth deciphered “Santiago, Desktop Publishing. (Pp. 51-74)